Voices en Español

 

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Every summer a modern-day Babel is built on the campus of Middlebury College in Vermont. It’s been this way for almost a century and the residents of this unusually tight-knit community are students of all ages who have come to study a foreign language in a complete immersion program.

If you’re not familiar with Vermont it’s a state located in the northeastern U.S. It’s a place known for its ice cream, independent spirit, neo-hippy culture and beautiful landscapes. It’s definitely not the first place that would come to mind as being a hotbed of foreign language study, but Middlebury College has developed a reputation for excellence in teaching foreign languages.

The small liberal arts college offers full immersion in 10 languages. They are: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. The summer program lasts anywhere from 6 to 9 weeks, depending on the language.

Some of you reading these words are probably thinking that a language program conducted on U.S. soil and run by an American college probably can’t be all that good. After all, the reputation of Americans is that we are monolingual spoiled brats who think that the rest of the world needs to learn English. I call tell you, from firsthand experience, that the Middlebury program is the real deal. In fact, in many ways, those six weeks spent in Vermont are more effective and more intense than six weeks spent in a Spanish-speaking country. The reason? Even when you attend a language school in a foreign country, unless you stay in a rural or remote area, you’re still going to be bombarded by a fair amount of English, via the Internet, other English-speaking tourists, even from the locals who want to practice their English with you.

At Middlebury, the slogan is “No English Spoken Here.” And they mean it. All incoming students, regardless of their level, must sign the college’s Language Pledge (La palabra de honor). This is a statement affirming that the student will communicate solely in the language they are studying. You sign this on Day One, before you get your dorm room keys, and once your signature is on that form you can only speak in the language you are there to study. If you don’t abide by the pledge, you will get shown the door.

Students and faculty live, eat and socialize together. There is no separation between class time and free time. Every hour of the day, outside of sleeping, is spent using and or studying the language, from working at the college radio station, playing volleyball to rehearsing for the college play, everything is conducted in the language that you are studying. Because the emphasis is on oral communication and the immersion is so complete (during the summer, none of the campus televisions have English-language programming and staying in close contact with the folks back home is discouraged), it is possible to make huge strides in one summer. It’s been said that one summer at Middlebury is equivalent to one academic year of language study.

Surprisingly enough, the overwhelming majority of the students abide by the pledge. Maybe it’s personal pride. Perhaps its group peer pressure. Whatever it is, it works.

In today’s podcast, we hear from Kim Griffin, director of Middlebury’s Spanish school in Spain. Middlebury offers both undergraduate and graduate programs in Spanish in Spain and in this interview Kim talks about the unique challenges of maintaining a language immersion environment outside of Vermont. Kim, who grew up in upstate New York, also talks about her experience learning and eventually mastering the Spanish language.

To read more about Middlebury College’s language programs, click here.